Original Contributions Dementia After Stroke Is a Predictor of Long-term Survival

Background and Purpose The aim of this study was to determine whether dementia after stroke adversely influences long-term survival. Methods Subjects were 251 patients >60 years of age with ischemic stroke who were given neurological, neuropsychological, and functional examinations 3 months after hospitalization and were followed up prospectively. Using criteria modified from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-R, dementia was found in 66 (26.3%) patients at the 3-month baseline examination. Life-table methods were used to estimate mortality rates in the groups with and without dementia after 1 to 5 years of follow-up, Kaplan-Meier curves to estimate the cumulative proportion surviving with and without dementia, and Cox proportional-hazards analysis to compute the relative risk of mortality associated with dementia at baseline, after adjusting for other potential predictors of stroke mortality. Results The mortality rate was 19.8 deaths per 100 personyears with dementia compared with 6.9 deaths per 100 personyears without dementia. The cumulative proportion surviving